olivetalks

Part 1 had 1,2, 3, 4, 5 and now…

6. The insides of the beast

Brussels apartment distributions are weird.

The ads claim: 1 room! 2 rooms! Contrary to the German system, where by Zimmer they mean bedrooms AND living room (2 rooms meaning 1 bedroom and 1 living room, for example), in Brussels by chambres they mean bedrooms. The living room counting as a separate entity. But Alas! what they claim a bedroom is! Look at the sketches of the two example apartments I saw.

The green rectangle is the main door to the apartment. The larger squares represent the living room plus kitchen area. The blue rectangles are the doors between the rooms. And they say A and B are the bedrooms… They will say “square” B is a bedroom! But tell me, how would you like your guests to go through your bedroom to have to go to the toilet? Excuse me I call B an enlarged corridor.

7. All the offers of the UGC cinemas

“To save money because coming to the cinema is expensive, we offer you 5 day tickets which are valid Monday to Thursday, saving you 2 EUR per ticket, or 5 day tickets valid Monday to Sunday which save you 1.2 EUR or our best offer yet, UGC membership cards for 17 EUR per month which allow you to watch any film and as many as you want, at whatever time, on whatever day, each month!” Tiny print: “But we are going to charge you 30c every time you go to the toilet…”

8. Hat off to you Brusselians!

Mobiles (”GSM” as the Valons call them) are free/open! That is, they will work with any card, from any mobile company, from any country. And they don’t cost you 100 EUR extra just because they are not mobile company-restricted like it happens in other countries. Weird item, but I’m taking my hat off Brussels.

9. And I must put my hat on again…

Item number 9 of my list is more sad than weird. Brussels is “sold” as a bilingual city. In theory by bilingual they mean: French and Flemish, but in practice it is more French and English. Sure, cool for foreigners, but 1. completely unfair for the Flemish community who can’t speak their own language in their own city. All signs and advertisements are bilingual (often also in English) but if they go to shops or hospitals, either they speak French or they go hungry/bleed out. 2. foreigners who live for over a year (I’ve met some who have lived up to 10 years in Brussels now!) who cannot even say good morning and thank you should be ashamed at themselves for their lack of respect to their welcoming host.

10. The growing ball

To finish on a lighter note, a situation that I hope is not the norm in Brussels North train station. On a Saturday at 6:30 am, through the loudspeaker you could hear the following announcements for passengers:

“attention, train arriving at platform 5 now arriving at platform 7, I repeat, train arriving at platform 5 now arriving at platform 7, attention, train arriving at platform 4 now arriving at platform 2, I repeat, train arriving at platform 4 now arriving at platform 2, attention, train arriving at platform 3 now arriving at platform 5, I repeat, train arriving at platform 3 now arriving at platform 5, attention, train arriving at platform 1 now arriving at platform 4, I repeat, train arriving at platform 1 now arriving at platform 4, attention…”

You could just imagine how it all started: the first train of the morning was sent to the wrong platform and after it, all following trains had to have their platforms changed. And all the passengers running from one platform to the other… I wonder how many got on the wrong trains!

And this is all folks for today. Or maybe not… I do have a bar of battery on my EEE left… maybe I could start the 10 weird things of Buenos Aires now…